How To Diet With Your Spouse So You Don’t End Up Divorced

At some point in your marriage, one or both of you will be faced with having to go on a diet.

For my wife and I, we ended up going on diets for different reasons but ultimately we decided to do it together. It has been a fun process working with each other. We feel it has strengthened our marriage learning how to do one of the hardest things you can do together and that’s…DIETING!! If you’ve ever dieted before you know what I’m talking about.

If you’ve ever dieted before you know what I’m talking about.

The proof is in the pudding, well were not actually eating pudding at this point in time but you get the point. In the last 30 days, we’ve lost 20lbs as a team. We’re hoping these tips can help others, just like us, who are married or in long-term relationships.

Here’s how we did it so far…

PERFECT TIMING
My wife and I chose to start dieting for different reasons. She wanted to get back down to her original weight pre-baby #1. I choose to go on a diet to show my members that I practice what I preach… “if I can do it, so can you”. The timing was perfect. Because there is no external pressure to keep the diet up we are able to support each other’s goals. Our motivation is purely 100% personal and intrinsically motivated.

PLAN AHEAD
Planning out our meals ahead of time reduces the daily stress of having perfect days. Which as we all know don’t exist. Although we normally eat the same foods for breakfast. Lunch and dinner are more strategic. Every Sunday we come up with a meal plan for the meals we want to have and put a list together based on those meals. The fridge is stocked and loaded with the food we need. This also eliminates the temptation to eat fast food as an excuse to not having the right foods to cook with.

PREP SPECIFIC FOODS
Being on a caloric deficit diet there are a handful of fruits and veggies that we eat daily to help keep our calories down. That requires having onions, mushroom, strawberries, blackberries, and lettuce on hand at all times. We go as far as to pre-cook our meats in advance for quick ready-to-eat meals. We highly recommend you create a go-to list of foods you eat weekly. If you think about it most of us only eat about 5-10 different food groups a week.

ZERO CALORIE SPRAYS
Before going on this diet we didn’t know such sprays existed. Knowing that there are zero calorie sprays like avocado oil, olive oil, and butter sprays we’ve been able to save over 1,000 calories a week. We’ve also come to learn that we don’t need oil to cook red meat. There’s enough fat in the meat to cook itself. Similar to consuming liquid calories, we believe cooking with oil is a misuse of your calories consumption.

DATE NIGHT CHEAT MEAL
Plan your cheat meal with your spouse during date night. This is something we have come to look forward to by getting as creative as possible as to where we can find low-calorie dinners. Cheat meals don’t mean we don’t track calories. We ALWAYS track calories! Instead, we fast all day so that 80% of our total calories from our cheat meal.

SUPPORT EACH OTHER
Keep praising your spouse for their weight loss and motivate them on days they might not lose as much weight as they would have liked to. Some days they lose a pound, and other days they don’t lose anything. On rare occasions for a plethora of reasons (excessive fluid intake, inactivity, menstruation, etc), they end up gaining weight. Having a supportive partner that understands how to encourage you in these moments is crucial for keeping you on the right path.

Ultimately, we believe that being married is an advantage we have over single people. Having a partner you can trust and confide in is a strength. When one is down, the other is there to pick them up. Other days its vise versa. What better way to take advantage of this asset than by dieting together.